Educational Journey into CMS – starting with Joomla!

Localhost installations

September 4, 2009

Week 2 Assignment

Joomla!

Screenshot of Localhost success!! I did run into trouble installing Joomla 1.5.14 into my XAMPP installation, but have concluded that this happened because I have not reinstalled WindowsXP in over 5 years. My instructor suggested this to me after I spent many hours including screen help using SKYPE to share my screen with my instructor – many troubleshooting attempts did not work. Everytime I selected the installation folder in the last step of Joomla, my computer screen would crash. In order for Joomla to install, you must select the installation folder and delete it, or you do not get Joomla to install on the localhost. My instructor saw my attempts and told me to write up my experience and call it a day. I was so close to getting this to work – and had to stop at this point in attempts last summer, that I just couldn’t let it go – I had to persist and find an answer. This list condenses the steps I had to take to install Joomla on my localhost computer after watching 3 videos on the process of both installing XAMPP and JOOMLA.

Week 2 Assignment Localhost

XAMPP had been previously installed with Joomla 1.5.12, but needed Joomla 1.5.14

Attempted to upgrade, but read that moving one step up from .13 to .14 contained less errors than jumping 2 steps in one upgrade

Uploaded Joomla15.14 to my computer – since nothing was installed using .12, copied over all files with .14

PHPmyAdmin used to ready XAMPP for Joomla 15.14

Created new database called Joomla15

Created new user with all privileges for using Joomla15 database (to ensure security and duplicate admin)

home>database>privileges (no check mark to database specific)>add a new user>privledges to check ok with file

Created a Joomla folder (new folder) in htdocs and extracted Joomla15 into this new folder

Opened browser using path http://localhost/joomla – and followed the install wizard which automatically appeared to install joomla

2nd page – display errors ON is in red/ all off in green except file uploads ON in green

step 4 – set localhost/my new user name and password, database joomla15 that I created in the phpMyAdmin

step 5 – ftp is NO since on windows based – localhost (needed on Unix, Linux?)

step 6 – type in your site name (creating it now is ok)/email/password that you will use as admin password in the back end

all folders AND files under C:> crash when highlighted or right click applied and crash/close the page;the same effect in explore and power desk

I made a fresh XAMPP and joomla install on my D drive with Elaine on Skype helping me with some of the prompts, and unfortunately got the same results. My first attempt at the XAMPP install was with a corrupt download, and I had to choose a different ‘mirror’ download for the last attempt

The only way I could work around deleting the installation folder without touching it with the cursor, was to type in the path to the folder in the My Computer C: drive; Edit>Select ALL, then MOVE the selection to a new folder on my C drive. I tried to CUT the selection, but that also caused the same error and crash I experienced earlier.

Install worked, I entered name of site, and it generated a code for admin which got me in the first time – changed the profile to an easier password.

Drupal

The steps are seeming more familiar – basically I start out creating a database in XAMPP, and make sure that I have a user name that is not just admin, but one that can use global settings. I then create a new empty folder in XAMPP under the htdocs file that will be the place to unzip the new CMS. From that point, the different CMS types had a few things to change, and usually it was not too hard. Here are the steps I took for Drupal:

Created database named drupal6 (user name already created -but I did make sure that this user was listed under Priviledges)

Continued install asking for my password and name (for admin) – and the database name that I created in step 1 – drupal6. Error at first, but everything was the same, I reentered the database name, my user and password names that I created initially for joomla, and the second time it worked

Installed ok until last step:

Drupal installation complete
warning: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at “localhost” port 25, verify your “SMTP” and “smtp_port” setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in C:\xampp\htdocs\drupal\drupal-6.13\includes\mail.inc on line 193.
Unable to send e-mail. Please contact the site administrator if the problem persists.
Congratulations, Drupal has been successfully installed.

Please review the messages above before continuing on to your new site.

I opened this file in DW, there is no ini_set() on line 193, line 193 is the end of a function…debating if this will hurt anything since it is just a localhost app. After some reading, I figured that I did not have SMTP even enabled in XAMPP, and I unblocked my antivirus for a few minutes to see if that would help – but despite the warnings, everything installed fine and I was presented with no errors signing on my new site. I do feel that when this site is placed on the server, that I will use the webhost installation of drupal, to be certain that everything is configured correctly for mail. I think the SMTP has something to do with Outlook, but not certain, as some of the forum posts I read spoke of this error with either a fix on unblocking anti-virus, or a problem with Outlook. I will have to investigate this some more at a later time.

Conclusion

I believe that I saved myself from a lot of errors by using this order of events:

After installing XAMPP (or MAMP, or WAMP), do two things in PHPmyAdmin –

create a database for your CMS (no mySQL tables – just an empty new database)

make a new user name and password in privileges that have global priveleges (btw this user name only had to be made once – it worked for all of the new CMS installations)

Create an empty new folder in XAMPP>htdocs – this is where you will extract/unzip your CMS file. I use FileZip to upload the CMS programs, and it opens up a browse window when you hit EXTRACT to see where you want the program extracted. Extract the CMS in your new folder

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Oh Nancy…i just don’t have that kind of time…..you have the patience of a saint! I tried WAMP and everything seemed good till i came back and there was no content—-zilch i tried Xamp but just din’t have the time to mess with it….